বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড "Our 1971-72 development has not started at all, said N.C. Gupta, chief secretary of the West Bengal government. "Everybody is working on the refugees." Sooner or later, therefore, India must make a hard choice. The first is to accept the shirk, unwelcome fact that Pakistan has succeeded in forcing up on India some 8 million people, 90 percent of them Hindus; that most of them will never go back, and like the Poles and the White Russians of years past in Europe, they had best be absorbed and dispersed throughout India's 28 states and federal territories. Publicly, India refuses even to entertain this solution. A second possibility is for India covertly to help the Mukti Bahini-the Liberation Army-to overthrow the Pakistan army in East Pakistan, establish an independent nation, and thus clear the way for the prompt return of the refugees. Again, publicly no one will state that this is India's objective. Nevertheless, signs are not wanting that India is turning to such a solution. It is an open secret that arms and training for the Mukti Bahini comes, in part, from India. In New Delhi, on September 3, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said that it is, not possible for any power to crush or suppress the movement for Bangladesh (the Bengal nation). Private voices are bolder. Said R.K. Nehru, vice-chancellor of Alahabad University and former secretary-general of the Ministry of External Affairs, early this month, "the situation in Bangladesh provides an ideal opportunity for us to bring about a break-up of Pakistan." Naturally, Pakistan will not sit still for such an alternative. The greater the thrust of the Mukti Bahini, the greater the chance of a Vietnam-type guerrilla war, and the larger the influx of new refugees into India. There is still a third possibility. "I could see a settlement short of total independence," an official in India's External Affairs Ministry, said quietly two months ago. Sometime, perhaps before chaos, it may come to this. But even then, will the refugees go back? At this point, no one knows.
